"How are you sure that this was the evening of the murder?" asked Brereton. "Can you prove that it was?"
"Easy!" said Mrs. Hamthwaite. "The very next morning I went away to see my daughter up the coast. I heard of the old man's murder at High Gill Junction. But I didn't hear then that Harborough was suspected—didn't hear that till later on, when we read it in the newspapers."
"And the other man—the tall man in grey clothes, who has a slightly grey beard—you didn't know him?"
Mrs. Hamthwaite made a face which seemed to suggest uncertainty.
"Well, I'll tell you," she answered. "I believe him to be a man that I have seen about this here neighbourhood two or three times during this last eighteen months or so. If you really want to know, I'm a good deal about them moors o' nights; old as I am, I'm very active, and I go about a goodish bit—why not? And I have seen a man about now and then—months between, as a rule—that I couldn't account for—and I believe it's this fellow that was with Harborough."
"And you say they went away in the direction of Hexendale?" said Brereton. "Where is Hexendale?"
The old woman pointed westward.
"Inland," she answered. "Over yonder. Miss there knows Hexendale well enough."
"Hexendale is a valley—with a village of the same name in it—that lies about five miles away on the other side of the moors," said Avice. "There's another line of railway there—this man Mrs. Hamthwaite speaks of could come and go by that."
"Well," remarked Brereton presently, "we're very much obliged to you, ma'am, and I'm sure you won't have any objection to telling all this again at the proper time and place, eh?"